178 American Fisheries Society 



largely divided amongst the leading states as their national 

 property. Britain, when she became a great maritime power, and 

 rival of Spain and the Netherlands, asserted very wide claims over 

 the seas. The House of Commons, in 1660, declared that foreign 

 vessels were prohibited from fishing within eight or ten miles of 

 British coasts; but the prohibition was generally ignored. During 

 the eighteenth century the principle of "armomm vis" became 

 pre-eminent, owing to the great naval wars, and waters within 

 cannon-shot of the shore became regarded as territorial. Bynker- 

 shoek's principle " terrae dominum finitur ubi finitur armorum vis " 

 appealed to warring nations, so that a 3-mile limit became regarded 

 as equivalent to armed power, or force of arms, i. e., equivalent 

 to the range of guns, and the exclusive right of fishery within such 

 limit became an implication; but it is doubtful if three miles ever 

 was the real limit of artillery range and certainly the limit is 

 obsolete in modern warfare ; even for civil and national protective 

 and other purposes. A three-mile limit has always been regarded 

 as quite insufficient. When Venice was an independent power, 

 she exercised absolute dominion over the whole of the Adriatic 

 sea. Every ship entering that sea had to acknowledge her 

 authority, consent to be examined, and pay the tribute enforced. 

 The Pope, who possessed Ferrara, about 50 miles south of Venice, 

 was annoyed that his ships were overhauled and their cargoes 

 taxed by Venice, and he called the Venetian Ambassador to Rome 

 to explain the position. That officer explained that Venice had 

 absolute and perpetual dominion over the Adriatic sea by enact- 

 ment of the "Donation of Constantine. " The Adriatic Sea is 

 about 500 miles long, and averages more than 100 miles in width. 

 Although the excessive and obsolete claims over the "common 

 ocean, " to use M. Drago's words, have been largely relinquished, 

 the assertion of exclusive property over large tracts of water, 

 has not been abandoned by many of them. It is an interesting 

 fact that the very first definition of the three-mile limit of 

 coastal jurisdiction was contained in the Treaty of 1818, 

 between the United States and Britain, but neither of the powers 

 signing that Treaty has rigidly carried out a three-mile limit 

 even on its own shores. The United States has always exercised 

 the rights of exclusive property over Chesapeake Bay, Delaware 

 Bay, and other areas, and Britain quite recently insisted upon her 



